


Oasis

by paperstorm



Series: Somewhere In Brooklyn [7]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Brooklyn, Established Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, M/M, POV Steve Rogers, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-War, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 16:43:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19772275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperstorm/pseuds/paperstorm
Summary: “Is there a point to this conversation?”“We should go, is the point.”“To a queer bar,” Bucky says, flatly. The look on his face says he isn’t planning on giving it a second thought before turning Steve down.





	Oasis

Steve heard two girls whispering about it at the store, and it’s the first time he’s ever considered such a place might exist. A place for people who are _a bit funny_ , the brunette had said, with a twisted expression on her face. Her friend hadn’t understood, forcing the brunette to squirm uncomfortably as she elaborated – _you know. Men that don’t bend the way they should_. The message was received after that, and her blond friend had wrinkled up her nose and suggested they should send the police over. Steve assumes the police already know, and likely raid the place as often as they shrug their shoulders and look the other way and silently allow it to continue as long as no one is getting hurt too badly. Or rather, as long as nobody who _matters_ is getting hurt too badly.  
  
He struggles to keep a straight face for the rest of his shift. To not let show outwardly what’s happening inside. His mind races, imagining. Imagining what it might look like inside, what kind of people might be there, if he’d get himself thrown in jail for even considering patronizing a place for people like him. He maybe shouldn’t be surprised to find out they exist, but he is. People like him tend to exist only in the shadows. On certain streets at certain dark hours. Keeping to themselves, keeping secrets, like Steve does, because people already assume enough things about him and it’s just easier and safer to keep them guessing instead of knowing. As long as they’re only guessing, he can deny it if he needs to.  
  
Bucky’s better at it, than Steve is. He’s tall and he’s handsome and he’s charming; girls are always all over him anyway, even if he never takes it any further than a dance and a kiss on the cheek, so people just assume he hasn’t found the right one to settle down with, yet. With Steve, they whisper behind his back a lot more often. He resents that from all angles, because it’s not as if it’s his _fault_. He’d do what Bucky does, too, if he could. He’d go out on dates, pretend to be interested, to keep up appearances, but girls don’t _like_ him. Every date he’s been on has been born from pity, or from obligation, the best friend of someone Bucky’s taking out roped into joining them on a double. It isn’t Steve’s fault he’s short and scrawny and sick all the time and puts his foot in his mouth in every conversation. He resents that even if he _were_ perfectly normal and looking for a wife, people would still whisper about him because no one wants to marry him anyway.  
  
Steve makes it to the end of his shift, and walks past the place on his way home. It isn’t open at four in the afternoon, and the adjacent street is deserted, so he can snoop without fear of being spotted. It looks unassuming from the outside. A relatively plain brick building with a metal door, no sign announcing its name or giving away what’s inside once darkness falls. He peeks in through a dirty window, and sees a long wooden bar, and tables around the edges, and an expansive empty space that he assumes is a dance floor. It’s so close to their apartment, Steve can’t believe he never knew it existed until today. Maybe there are all kinds of places in their neighborhood that he never knew about. Maybe there’s an entire subculture, a whole nighttime world he knows nothing about. He’s heard about the prostitutes, and the tattoo shops, and the booze. It never occurred to him half those prostitutes might be men. It never occurred to him all speakeasys might not cater to the same clientele.  
  
His stomach swoops, imagining risking it. Imagining coming here with Bucky on a Friday night and dancing with him. Bucky loves dancing. He does it with girls at dance halls, and with Steve in their kitchen with the blinds closed. Steve imagines what it would be like to dance with him somewhere else. Somewhere like this place, surrounded by people who wouldn’t judge them, wouldn’t have anything to say about two men holding each other, wouldn’t even look twice at them. What it would be like to be just like everyone else, even just for a moment. To exist in a space where he could hold Bucky’s hand and it would be normal.  
  
He doesn’t tell Bucky about it for three days. Biding his time, until Bucky’s in a good enough mood that he might be open to it, might at least _listen_ to Steve, hear him out, before he says no. Bucky gets the day off on a Tuesday because there’s an overnight fire at the shipyard and they can’t work until the debris is cleaned up and the fire brigade conducts an arson investigation. It probably was arson, it usually is when things randomly catch fire in this neighborhood, but Steve doubts they’ll find the perpetrator. Steve still has to work, but it’s a morning shift at the shop so he’s done by mid-afternoon, and they head for the park. They lie in the shade underneath a massive tree, chatting aimlessly, far enough apart that it won’t look suspicious but still close. It cements Steve’s decision in his mind, because across the way, a man and woman are wrapped up together on a blanket under another tree, cuddled and kissing, and Steve has to maintain a safe distance from Bucky to keep from getting their asses kicked by a random passerby.  
  
After dinner, he cautiously breaches the subject. He clears his throat, and Bucky looks up at him curiously. “Have you heard of Sands Street?”  
  
Bucky’s forehead wrinkles. “What do you mean, have I heard of it?”  
  
“Like what it … is. At night.”  
  
“Oh.” Bucky’s frown deepens, but understanding is in his eyes. “I … yeah. I guess so. In the way that you hear things. I mean, you … you know what goes on at the Navy yard after dark.”  
  
Steve stares at him. “No, I don’t. How do _you_?”  
  
“Not from experience.” Bucky rolls his eyes and shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “You just … hear things.”  
  
“There’s a place,” Steve blurts out, before he loses his nerve. “For people like us. A place we could go, and … music, and booze, and dancing.”  
  
Bucky nods. “There are lots of places. Around here.”  
  
“How did you know that and I didn’t?” Steve demands.  
  
“Because I listen,” Bucky says, with a shrug.  
  
“And I don’t?”  
  
“Well apparently not.” Bucky turns his frown toward Steve. “Is there a point to this conversation?”  
  
“We should go, is the point.”  
  
“To a queer bar,” Bucky says, flatly. The look on his face says he isn’t planning on giving it a second thought before turning Steve down.  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“Because we’d be fucked if we got found out, that’s why not.”  
  
Steve resents that Bucky thinks he hasn’t considered that. “But there’s a lot of places, like you said. Which means there’s a lot of people going to them. It can’t be that dangerous, or they wouldn’t exist at all.”  
  
Bucky gets up from the table, sighing deeply and rubbing his hands over the five o’clock shadow on his chin. When he turns back to Steve, he looks incredulous. “Do you _enjoy_ gettin’ the snot beat outta you? Is it a fetish of some kind? ‘Cause I could knock you around a little if that’s what gets you off, that’d be a hell of a lot safer than this bonehead idea.”  
  
Steve fixes him with a hard look. “You try to knock me around and I’ll put you on your ass, Barnes.”  
  
“So then, what? We don’t _have_ to sneak around at those places to be together, like some guys do. We can be together right here.”  
  
“I want to be together somewhere other than here.”  
  
“ _Why_?”  
  
“Maybe I want people to see!”  
  
Bucky rolls his eyes, and grumbles, “should’a known that. Should’a known you’d get your jollies to danger. You’re not always pickin’ fights with meatheads twice your size because it’s good for your health.”  
  
“It’s not _that_ , asshole,” Steve spits at him.  
  
“What, then?”  
  
“Nobody fuckin’ gives me the time of day, ‘cept you!” Steve cries. He gets up and paces agitatedly to the other side of the kitchen. “You ain’t been on a serious date with a girl in over a year, and everybody still assumes you could get it whenever you wanted it, just ‘cause you’re tall and handsome and skirts giggle when you walk by and smile at ‘em!”  
  
“Just because they assume it, doesn’t make them right. And you don’t need to call ‘em _skirts_ just ‘cause you’re pissed at me. That’s not like you.”  
  
“I’m pissed because the rest of the world looks at me and sees scrawny and sick and _worthless_ , and pities me because no dame would ever want me, and all the while I’ve got _you_ , I’ve got someone like you wanting me but no one can ever _know_. Maybe it’s selfish, alright? Maybe it is, but I just … want someone to know. I want someone to look at me, and see someone like you with your arm around me, and think, maybe there’s more to that kid than what he looks like, if someone like Bucky Barnes thinks he’s good enough.”  
  
Bucky’s mouth is open, and he shakes his head slowly, unable for a moment to respond.  
  
Steve crosses his arms over his chest, feeling exposed, like he’d just sliced himself open and let everything spill out and wants to frantically gather it all back up and stuff in back inside, but he can’t. It’s all on the floor between them. It’s messy and unattractive and he can’t take it back.  
  
“The only one who thinks you’re not good enough is you,” Bucky says finally.  
  
It’s kind of him to say it, but it isn’t true, and he knows it as well as Steve does. “It’s not _fair_ , Buck, that’s why. Okay? It’s not fair that everyone else gets to walk down the street holding their sweetheart’s hand and we can’t.”  
  
“It’s not fair,” Bucky repeats. He shakes his head again. “You wanna get us killed because it’s not fair.”  
  
Steve blinks furiously as hot, angry tears pool in his eyes. He isn’t angry at Bucky, instead he’s angry at the whole world, and that’s so much bigger and more impossible.  
  
“Steve,” Bucky says softly. His hands drop down helplessly to his sides, a soft thump echoing in the quiet room. His head tilts to one side, eyebrows stitching together.  
  
“Forget it,” Steve mutters. He wipes his eyes, frustrated at himself more than anything, and turns away. His hands brace on the counter in front of him. “You’re right, it’s a stupid idea.”  
  
Bucky moves in quietly behind him. His hands tentatively cup around Steve’s hips, wrapping more fully when Steve doesn’t immediately throw him off. He kisses the back of Steve’s head, and murmurs into his hair, “it’s not stupid. I just don’t want you getting hurt. I work every day with the kinda guys who would have something to say over us if they knew and would say it with their fists. I see it, I know that type’a guy and I know what he’d do to us if we were caught. Is it really worth the risk?”  
  
“It’s just … not fair.” Steve sniffs. He isn’t crying, not quite, but can’t quite manage to keep his eyes dry either. Nothing in their lives has ever been properly fair, and there are times he can’t stomach that. Injustice weighs too heavily on him.  
  
“No, it isn’t,” Bucky agrees. “Look at me?”  
  
Steve turns. Bucky leans down and kisses him, slow and soft, on the lips. Then his hands move, gripping Steve’s ribcage and lifting him, plopping him down onto the counter. Normally Steve would gripe at him for it, he hates being reminded of how small he is. Right now, he doesn’t mind so much. Bucky pushes to stand in between his legs, reaching out with one hand and brushing the hair off Steve’s forehead. It’s loving, the way he touches. It always is.  
  
“I wanna hold your hand,” Steve admits. “It’s not about … putting on a show for somebody, or getting off on the risk. It’s that other guys can walk down the street holding hands with their girls, and kiss them on street corners, and take them dancing, and we can’t.”  
  
“I know.” Bucky’s in close enough that Steve feels the words, a rush of warm breath on his cheek. “I’d never stop touching you, if we could. If it was safe. The thing is, for me? It don’t matter one lick who knows. What we got, right here in this shitty apartment, that’s all I’ll ever need.”  
  
“Is it, though?” Steve asks. He rests his forehead against Bucky’s, curling his fingers around the back of Bucky’s neck. The curls along his hairline are soft and a little damp from the summer heat. “Maybe for now. What happens five years from now? Or ten? When everyone else you know has a bride and a couple kids and you’re still pretending to be a perpetual bachelor. What happens when you get old enough that you _should_ be married already, and people start talking.”  
  
“That’s what this is about? You think I’m gonna regret you?”  
  
Steve can’t answer. It’s not what it’s about, not entirely, but that’s always a thought scraping at the back of his skull, one that he can’t ever admit out loud.  
  
“You’re it for me, Stevie. The only one on the whole planet for me. I’m never gonna love again the way I love you. Even if you died, even if _you_ decide in ten years you don’t want me anymore, wouldn’t change anything. I wouldn’t marry some poor broad just to save myself from the loneliness. Wouldn’t be right at all, to make a life with someone I could never love the way she’d deserve. It’s you, or nobody. End of.”  
  
“You don’t mean that,” Steve mumbles. “You’d find someone else, if I died.”  
  
“I wouldn’t.” Bucky’s lips move along his cheek. “I do mean it. I’m gonna die loving you. If you’re there with me, or if you’d left me 50 years earlier, won’t make a difference. I’ll still love you ‘till my heart gives out.”  
  
“Buck,” Steve whispers. Swallows, and it sticks in his throat. Has to squeeze his molars together to keep a whimper inside. He struggles, too often, to believe he’s worthy of it, when Bucky talks like that. When Bucky really could have anyone, anyone in the whole country, and he’s here with Steve.  
  
Bucky kisses him instead of answering. Instantly deep, and fervent, and passionate, gasping into Steve’s mouth and then pushing his tongue inside to taste. It swirls around Steve’s, warm and soft. His hands roam, fingers finding the hem of Steve’s shirt and tugging it out of its tucked position in his pants. Steve’s head goes fuzzy as Bucky makes him untidy, unbuttoning his pants as he sucks at Steve’s bottom lip and pushing his hand inside. He rubs, and Steve shivers, blood pulsing through his veins and heading to his groin, cock filling quickly under Bucky’s hand.  
  
“Gonna let me jerk you off right here in the kitchen?” Bucky asks, a teasing lilt to his voice.  
  
Steve shudders as Bucky’s fingers shove his underwear out of the way, skin touching skin for the first time and sending shockwaves through him, stronger than they should be. Bucky touches him like this so often, sometimes daily, sometimes twice a day. It shouldn’t still feel so life-changing, but maybe he’s desperate, just now, to prove something to himself. That Bucky really does want him, that his hesitance about the bar isn’t about being embarrassed to be seen with Steve, but about protecting him, like he’d said.  
  
“Everything about you makes me crazy, you know that, don’t you?” Bucky nips at Steve’s lip, and then traces his tongue over it. His fingers curl around Steve’s length, stroking him slowly. Pleasure zips along Steve’s skin. “Maybe I wanna keep you here so I can have you all to myself. Don’t want competition.”  
  
“No … _fuck_ … no competition. You’re it for me, too.”  
  
“Say it again.”  
  
“Love you. All yours,” Steve promises. He squints, and can’t get his vision to slip fully back into focus. Bucky’s hand feels so good. Always knows just exactly how to touch Steve. He always has.  
  
“Love this cock. Fits so perfect in my hand. Or my ass. Love it when you fuck me, Stevie, I ever tell you that?”  
  
“Yeah, Buck,” Steve says, shakily. His fingers grip Bucky’s biceps, squeezing.  
  
“Feels so good, so perfect, you fillin’ me all right up. Made for me, made to fit with me like puzzle pieces. Love fuckin’ you, too. That gorgeous ass, could eat it all day long. Love the way that little hole is so small until I start pettin’ it or lickin’ it and then it just opens right up for me, takes me in so nice. You get this blissed out look on your face when I hit bottom, like you never felt anything so good.”  
  
“Never have,” Steve agrees. A moan is punched out of his chest as Bucky’s twists his wrist, palm sliding over the wet head of Steve’s cock.  
  
“Could come sometime just from the noises you make.” Bucky digs his thumb in below the ridge and Steve shakes, pleasure coursing like fire though his veins. “Just from you moaning and gasping in my ear so pretty.”  
  
“Buck,” Steve moans, unintentionally providing an example.  
  
“Yeah,” Bucky breathes. “Yeah, just like that. Say my name like it’s the only word you know anymore, when you get too worked up.”  
  
“I can’t …”  
  
“Wanna come?” Bucky asks, teasing, his voice low and his face still close.  
  
“ _Please_ ,” Steve gasps.  
  
“You got it, babydoll.” Bucky strips his cock, jacking him quick and a little rough like Steve likes it.  
  
Steve moans again, his hips canting up into Bucky’s fist, warmth exploding at the base of his spine and his cock spilling messily over Bucky’s fingers. Bucky strokes him gently through the tremors that come after, his other hand petting over Steve’s hair and his lips resting on Steve’s forehead.  
  
“We can go,” Bucky says softly.  
  
Steve blinks a few times, unable at first to make sense of that through the lingering haze. “We can what?”  
  
“To the bar. If you really want.”  
  
“I …” Steve shakes his head. He does want, but not if it means dragging Bucky there unwillingly. That wouldn’t be fair either. “Not if you don’t. Wouldn’t be any fun if you didn’t want to be there. It’s okay. I get it.”  
  
“It scares me,” Bucky admits, in a tiny voice.  
  
His chin rests on the top of Steve’s head, holding him close with arms around Steve’s back. Steve’s come is probably still dripping over the fingers of his right hand, now being smeared onto the back of Steve’s shirt, but he doesn’t care. They need to do laundry anyway. He keeps his own fingers tangled in the hair at the nape of Bucky’s neck.  
  
“The thought of getting caught. The thought of people finding out, my family finding out, what they’d say. What they’d do. It scares me so much, Steve. And maybe that’s cowardly. No, it _is_ cowardly. I’ve just never been as brave as you are.”  
  
“Yes you are,” Steve argues. “You just don’t believe you are.”  
  
“I want it, too. You know that, right? I wanna hold your hand and kiss you on street corners, everything you said.”  
  
“I know that.”  
  
“Just scared of what happens if someone sees us. You can call me yellow, if you want.”  
  
Steve shakes his head. He slides his hands down, cupping Bucky’s cheek and leaning back so he can capture his mouth in a kiss. “I wouldn’t. And you aren’t.”  
  
“We can go,” Bucky says again. “I wanna.”  
  
“Don’t do it for me.”  
  
“M’not. Or, I am. But for me, also. Wanna dance with you, and have people see, and have it be okay. Maybe I need that, too.”  
  
Steve nods. “Okay.”  
  
They do wait until Friday, figuring it will be busier on the weekend and therefore less likely they’ll be seen by someone who knows them. Easier to get lost in the crowd. Sands Street is bustling, when they approach it after the sun goes down. All sorts of people, people like Steve’s never seen before, some covered in tattoos, some in the weirdest outfits he’s ever seen. It’s the same inside. The music is loud, and the lights are low, and bodies move on the dancefloor, much raunchier and far less proper than the dance halls he’s been to with Bucky on double dates. The entire room seems to be moving, pulsating with life and vibrancy, like the fringe sections of humanity the rest of the world rejected crawled from the woodwork and congregated in a bar only blocks away from where Steve has lived for years.  
  
Some girls with big hair and heavy makeup and dresses that seem too fancy for the modest area, Steve realizes after a few moments, aren’t girls at all.  
  
Next to him, Bucky mutters, “Jesus Christ.”  
  
“Be nice,” Steve admonishes softly.  
  
“I’m not _not_ being nice,” Bucky argues back. “I’ve never seen a guy in a dress before, gimme a fucking minute to process it.”  
  
“They’re not hurting anybody.”  
  
“Did I say they were?” Bucky glares at him. “What’re you trying to paint me as a bigot for, I’m not even saying anything.”  
  
Feeling bold, Steve reaches down and takes his hand. He threads their fingers together, and for just a moment, a flicker of panic passes over Bucky’s face and Steve thinks he’s going to pull his hand away. But he doesn’t. He takes a deep breath and nods, squeezing Steve’s hand and giving him a look that’s unsure, but determined. Steve could maybe burst.  
  
They sit at the bar for a while, absorbed in their unfamiliar surroundings. Steve watches as two grown men with stubble and hairy arms kiss in the middle of the dance floor, wrapped up in each other like they’ve forgotten the world around them exists. It feels strangely voyeuristic to be watching them, but it’s right out in the open and he’s captivated. There’s such freedom in it. The idea of kissing Bucky like that, outside of the safety of their apartment, terrifies him as much as it excites him.  
  
He looks over, and Bucky is watching them, as well. He licks his lips, and shifts a little in his chair, and his eyes dart over to Steve for just a split second before he blushes and looks down at his own hands, folded in his lap.  
  
“Wanna dance?” Steve asks, suddenly shy, like he’s asking Bucky to dance for the first time. In a way, he is. They’ve never done it in public.  
  
Before Bucky can answer, massive blond hair and a bright pink dress with matching lipstick is in front of them, grinning at Bucky.  
  
“Well aren’t you handsome,” she purrs at him.  
  
Bucky blushes deeper, and Steve bites his lip to cover his smile. “Thanks. Thank you.”  
  
“Patty,” she says, extending her hand primly.  
  
Bucky takes it and shakes her fingers awkwardly. “Uh, Bucky. This is Steve.”  
  
Her green eyes round onto him, widening for just a moment, and her smile grows. Underneath her makeup, just a hint of closely shaved facial hair is visible. “Ooh, look at you. Could just eat you up.”  
  
Bucky chuckles.  
  
Patty turns back to him. “He your fella?”  
  
Steve holds his breath, half expecting Bucky to deny it, to make up some other reason to explain why they’re here, but Bucky nods confidently. “He is.”  
  
“First time here?”  
  
“How could you tell?” Steve asks.  
  
“You look like frightened baby rabbits, honey, that’s how. I promise we don’t bite. Not unless you want us to.”  
  
Bucky’s whole face is red, and Steve is sure his would match, but he’s grinning.  
  
“I like your dress,” Bucky says.  
  
“And he’s sweet, on top of it all.” She pats Bucky’s flushed cheek, and winks at Steve. “Lucky boy.”  
  
“Yeah.” Steve nods. He reaches for Bucky’s hand again, taking it and bringing it up to kiss his knuckles. “I am.”  
  
“Anybody gives you a hard time around here, you send ‘em to me, alright? They shouldn’t, most people here are harmless. But just in case.”  
  
“Can I ask you something?” Steve says.  
  
“‘Course, sugar.”  
  
“Do we call you a girl?” He winces as it comes out of his mouth, and Bucky coughs. “Sorry, I don’t mean to offend.”  
  
“In here, you do.” She doesn’t look offended, and her smile is kind and understanding. Her voice changes, going lower, more natural. “At my day job, I’m Pete. In here, I get to be who I want. So do you.”  
  
She winks at Steve again, and floats away, into the arms of a tall man in a suit, who takes her hand, spins her around, and dips her down low. They disappear into the crowd.  
  
Bucky lets out a low whistle. He looks over at Steve, and they both laugh anxiously. Bucky smooths his hair back off his forehead, a habit he has when he’s nervous. His throat moves as he swallows, and then he holds his hand out. “Yeah, I wanna dance,” he says, answering Steve’s question from before they were interrupted.  
  
Steve smiles. He takes Bucky’s hand, and Bucky leads him into the throng on the dance floor. It’s an upbeat song, with a swinging time signature and a bouncy melody, but Bucky keeps holding Steve’s hand and wraps his other arm around Steve’s waist, holding him close and swaying with him as if it were a ballad. Steve hooks his arm around Bucky’s shoulders and leans forward to rest his head against Bucky’s strong chest. He smells good, familiar and warm and like home.  
  
Bodies move around them, and Steve’s heart races. He knows they’re surrounded, in the middle of a crowd, and feels the weight of that. The fact that they can be seen, that there could be people sitting at the bar watching them like Steve was watching the two kissing men, feels heavy and significant. At the same time, it also feels like they’re all alone. The world always narrows right down, when Bucky holds him.  
  
“I could maybe get used to coming here,” Bucky says quietly, into Steve’s hair.  
  
“Me too,” Steve says back.  
  
Bucky nudges Steve’s face up and kisses him. It feels like the most important kiss of Steve’s life.

**Author's Note:**

> [come talk to me on tumblr if you want!](http://paper-storm.tumblr.com/)


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